I am standing just below the peak of Zeppelinfjellet, a 556m (1,824ft) mountain on the Brøggerhalvøya peninsula of Spitsbergen in Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Beneath me is the town of Ny-Ålesund, a tiny settlement with a population of 45 in the depths of winter and up to 150 at the height of the summer. It is the northernmost permanent settlement in the world, situated around 765 miles (1,231km) from the North Pole.